You might remember that back in September of last year, BrickLink.com, the online LEGO marketplace, announced that they are collaborating with the LEGO Group for the AFOL (Adult-Fans-Of-LEGO) Designer Program to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the LEGO brick and the creativity of adult LEGO fans. The program has three phases; 1.) LEGO fans submit their own custom projects from which the LEGO design team selects 20 finalists, 2.) the selected projects are made available for pre-order, 3.) successfully crowdfunded projects get produced as limited-edition sets exclusively available through BrickLink.com. Read more about the details of the program here: AFOL Designer Program by LEGO & BrickLink 🙂
Currently, we are close to beginning the second phase of this initiative, which means that the 20 finalists have been selected by the LEGO design team. Starting on February 1st, you’ll be able to pre-order these projects and help bring some very creative designs to the market in a way never before possible. Projects that reach 100% of their funding goal will move on to the production phase.
Once the pre-order phase is completed, the BrickLink team will be hard at work turning the successfully funded digital creations into real life sets with packaging and instructions. They are working with a packaging company in Los Angeles to produce the boxes. The last phase of the process is going to be shipping the sets to backers. One of the benefits of being an initial backer is that you will get free shipping on all the sets. And, of course, you will also get your hands on the set(s) before anyone else.
Prices and funding goals for the 20 selected projects have not been announced yet, so check back at BrickLink.com in a couple of days when the crowdfunding phase opens (beginning of February). However, we do know that we can pre-order up to 3 of each design. Pre-ordering will end and production begins in March, and shipping will begin in April. You can see more detailed pictures and descriptions about each of the projects at this page at BrickLink.com.
There is also an interesting little contest BrickLink announced on Twitter, called the “Guess the Price Challenge”. Basically, you guess what the final price of one, some, or all of the 20 finalists is going to be, and whoever is closest will win a copy of that set (if successfully crowdfunded). You have until Friday to guess the prices. You can enter the contest here.
The LEGO Group started the AFOL Designer Program with the key priority of celebrating and promoting the creativity and initiatives of adult LEGO fans. Part of the program involves collaborating with others (like BrickLink) to produce unique sets in small quantities. The AFOL Designer Program is currently being tested, and depending on the outcome, the program may be more broadly implemented in the future. Another unique initiative that LEGO started last year is the LEGO FORMA crowdfunding campaign and collaboration with Indiegogo, which we talked about previously (see links at the end of this post).
What do you think? How do you like the AFOL Designer Program projects? Are you planning to support and pre-order any of them? Feel free to share and discuss in the comment section below! 😉
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I’m not sure what to think about these sets. None of them really jump out at me as exceptional. I think for the anniversary something small would have been nice. Or maybe a medium set with nostalgic value. Like the a remake of the yellow castle, or galactic explorer.
Most of these sets are too large (which is probably going to mean expensive), and none of them appeal to me as a must-have. Maybe the castle. But it’s just a maybe.
I think the Lego story one is clever. And I like the classic fire truck. Of course, it will all depend on prices. I might fill out that survey/contest thing to guess the prices. It could be educational.
Guessing those prices is not easy! I’m filling out the survey just for my own curiosity. I know when I look at sets, I almost always underestimate the price. LOL.
My kids like the bike shop and the castle. They just wish the bikes were different colors. The castle looks good, but I fear it might be too expensive.
I think the Wild West Saloon and the Steampunk Mini Chess have the most potential.
But the only one I possibly might buy is the bike shop, if there’d be new or rare colors included (which feels unlikely)…
Sorry off topic, I just want to let people know that if they what to replace the the pilot from the star wars resistance bomber set that was supposed to be in the first wave of the set . That Lego inventory is kind of low and that there saving what they have for the already update version of this set( 75188 star wars the resistance bomber). Just a heads up. ( the set is from the last Jedi wave).
How do you replace the pilot? Do you have have to call customer service for it? I heard or read something about this, but I can’t remember where.
Is this a real service? They’d already switched the pilot for the new stock, so if you’d like the old pilot, I guess you’d just try Bricklink or something… =/
How is LEGO involved with this? Are they going to redesign the sets like they do with the Ideas sets? I like the firetruck and may consider purchasing that if the price is right. I’m curious how they are going to package these and the quality of the instructions.
Pretty sure they will basically just be supplying parts. I don’t think LEGO will be doing any redesigning, BrickLink may do a little something if for some reason necessary for structural reasons (but that’s probably been taken into account in the earlier phase). If I recall the rules right, these are the final designs or very close.
Lego customer service we’re the ones that told me about not able to replace the newer minifigure( pilot) so, the new one is already out in the second or third wave but, if you got the set when it first came out then you get the wrong pilot. It’s all just a miscommunication on Disney’s part. They should of informed Lego better and the ones that suffer are the customers.
I don’t know if you’d like to change the older pilot, anyway, since my impression was that it was rarer.
I love the Castle I would definitely want that as a set.